CHEAT SHEET

The Ladder (p. 9) Skill Roll (p. 130) Aspect Types (p. 57) Challenges (p. 147)
+8 Legendary Roll four Fate dice and add to skill rating. Compare to • Game aspects: permanent, made • Each obstacle or goal that requires a
opposition. For each step on the ladder greater than your during game creation different skill gets an overcome roll.
+7 Epic opposition, you earn a shift. • Character aspects: permanent, made • Interpret failure, costs, and success of
+6 Fantastic during character creation each roll together to determine final
Opposition Types (p. 131) outcome.
+5 Superb • Situation aspects: last for a scene,
• Active: another character rolls against you until overcome, or until irrelevant
+4 Great
• Passive: a static rating on the ladder • Boosts: last until invoked one time Contests (p. 150)
+3 Good • Contesting characters roll appropriate
Four Outcomes (p. 132) • Consequences: last until recovered skills.
+2 Fair
+1 Average • Fail: fail your action or succeed at major cost • If you got the highest result, you score
Invoking Aspects (p. 68) a victory.
+0 Mediocre • Tie (0 shifts): succeed at minor cost Spend a fate point or free invoke. Choose one: • If you succeed with style and no one
• Succeed (1–2 shifts): succeed with no cost • +2 to your skill roll else does, then you get two victories.
–1 Poor
• Succeed with style (3+ shifts): succeed with addi- • Reroll all your dice • If there’s a tie for the highest result, no
–2 Terrible
tional benefit • Teamwork: +2 to another character’s one gets a victory, and an unexpected
roll versus relevant passive opposition twist occurs.
Game Time (p. 194)
Four Actions (p. 134)
• Exchange: time for every- • Obstacle: +2 to the passive opposition • The first participant to achieve three
Overcome: get past an obstacle victories wins the contest.
one to get a turn o Free invokes stack with a paid one and each
• Scene: time to resolve a Create an Advantage: invoke an aspect for free other. Conflicts (p. 154)
situation c • Set the scene, describing the environ-
• Session: a single sitting Attack: harm another character
Compelling Aspects (p. 71) ment the conflict takes place in, cre-
• Scenario: an episode
a Accept a complication for a fate point. ating situation aspects and zones, and
Defend: prevent attacks or advantages on you • Event-based: You have ____ aspect establishing who’s participating and
• Arc: a season d and are in ____ situation, so it makes what side they’re on.
• Campaign: the entire game sense that, unfortunately, ____ would
• Determine the turn order.
in a particular setting happen to you. Damn your luck.
Mitigating damage (p. 160) • Start the first exchange:
Fill in one stress box greater than or equal to the value of an • Decision-based: You have ____ aspect
in ____ situation, so it makes sense ˏ On your turn, take an action and
attack, take one or more consequence, or fill in one stress
that you’d decide to ____. This goes then resolve it.
box and take consequences—if you can’t do one of these
wrong when ____ happens. ˏ On other people’s turns, defend
three things, you’re taken out.
or respond to their actions as
Consequences (p. 162) Refresh (p. 80) necessary.
At the start of a new session, you reset your ˏ At the end of everyone’s turn,
• Mild: –2 to attack value
fate points to your refresh rate. If you ended start again with a new exchange.
• Moderate: –4 to attack value the last session with more points, you keep
the extra. At the end of a scenario, you reset • Conflict is over when everyone on one
• Severe: –6 to attack value side has conceded or been taken out.
to your refresh rate no matter what.
• Extreme: –8 to attack and permanent character aspect
Earning Fate Points (p. 81)
Recovery (p. 164) Spending Fate Points (p. 80) Earn fate points when you:
• Mild: overcome Fair (+2), one whole scene Spend fate points to:
• Accept a compel
• Moderate: overcome Great (+4), one whole session • Invoke an aspect
• Have your aspects invoked against
• Severe: overcome Fantastic (+6), one whole scenario • Power a stunt you
• Refuse a compel • Concede a conflict
• Declare a story detail
 VETERANS’ GUIDE
This is a new version of Fate, which we developed to update and streamline the
system. Here’s a guide to the major changes to the system from previous versions like
Spirit of the Century and The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game.

Game and Character Creation Actions and Stuff

• Game creation is a variant of Dresden’s city creation, but very pared down. At • The list of actions has been greatly reduced from previous Fate games down to
minimum, you only make two aspects called issues to define your game, with the four: overcome, create an advantage, attack, and defend. Movement is now a
option to drill down if you want to add aspects to faces and locations. function of the overcome action, create an advantage subsumes assess/declare/
• There are fewer aspects in this edition than other Fate games. We cut down the maneuver from previous games under one banner, and blocks can be handled a
number of phases to three—a significant adventure, and two guest appearances. number of different ways.
We found that it’s easier to come up with five good aspects than seven or ten. • The game is no longer based on a binary pass/fail. Now there are four outcomes:
And because there are game aspects and you can make situation aspects, you fail or succeed at cost, tie (succeed at minor cost), succeed, and succeed with
shouldn’t be short of things to invoke or compel! style. Each outcome now has a mechanical or story-driven effect, based on what
• If your game is going to use a lot of extras, or you have specific elements in your action it’s attached to. Succeeding with style is basically taking spin from previ-
game that you want every character to describe with aspects (such as species ous versions of Fate and applying it across the board.
or nationality), you can raise the number of aspect slots. We don’t recommend • Challenges and contests have been greatly simplified and redesigned.
going higher than seven character aspects—after that, we’ve noticed that many • Zone borders have been replaced by the use of situation aspects to determine if
of them don’t tend to pull their weight in play. it’s even worth rolling for movement. Moving one zone with an action is always
• If you’ve played The Dresden Files RPG, you know that we use skill columns for free if there’s nothing in the way.
that instead of the pyramid. In this build of Fate, we wanted character creation • On that note, supplemental actions and skill modifiers are completely removed
to be as quick and accessible as possible, so we went with a Great (+4) pyramid from the system. Either something is interesting enough to roll for, or it isn’t.
as standard. If you want to use the columns, go ahead—you get 20 skill points.
The skill column didn’t completely go away. It’s just reserved for advancement • Teaming up is greatly simplified from previous games—everyone who has at
(p. 258). least an Average (+1) at the same skill adds +1 to the person with the highest
skill level.
• 3 refresh, and 3 free stunts. Stress boxes work exactly like The Dresden Files RPG.
Scenario Creation
Aspects
• The advice is way better.
• In other Fate games, free invocations were called “tagging.” We thought this was
one bit of jargon too many. You can still call it that if you want—whatever helps
you and your table understand the rule.
Extras
• These exist. Whereas each previous Fate game had a specific way of dealing with
• You might have seen player-driven compels referred to as “invoking for effect.” powers and gadgets and stuff, now there are a variety of options for you to choose
We thought it was clearer to just call it a compel, no matter who initiates it. from (as befits the toolkit nature of the system).
• Free invocations now stack with a regular one or stack together with other free
invocations on the same aspect. Further, an aspect can hold more than one free
invoke at a time.
• Invoking an aspect attached to another character gives them a fate point at the
end of the scene.
• Compels are subdivided into two specific types: decisions and events. This isn’t
a change in how compels work, so much as a clarification, but it’s worth noting.
• Scene aspects have been renamed to situation aspects, to clear up some confusion
over how flexibly they can be applied.